 According to Angela Vogel and Hartmut Rübner, Carl Hillmann, a typesetter and prominent trade unionist in the 1870s, was the "intellectual father" of the localist and anarcho-syndicalist movement.Vogel's and Rübner's claim is based on the fact that Hillmann was the first in Germany to consider unions' primary role to be the creation of the conditions for a socialist revolution, not simply to improve workers' living conditions.He also advocated a de-centralized trade union federation structure.